Home » Zambia » Day 5. Wed 25th September Livingstone Memorial. Mpika.

We swap vehicles today. Chris and Pete decide to stay where they are, so Nathan, Amanda and I join Chris and Ken in the Discovery, while Kate, Sue and Andy travel with Pete and Auxies in the Defender. This pattern of swapping seems to work for everyone and we stick with it throughout the trip.

Day 5. Wed 25th September Livingstone Memorial. Mpika.

DaveMidgley
2005-10-22 12:05:53

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We swap vehicles today. Chris and Pete decide to stay where they are, so Nathan, Amanda and I join Chris and Ken in the Discovery, while Kate, Sue and Andy travel with Pete and Auxies in the Defender. This pattern of swapping seems to work for everyone and we stick with it throughout the trip.

After leaving Kasanka NP we take a short detour to the Livingstone Memorial. On the way Ken decides to call in on one of the Bemba villages along the road to give us a closer view of the African village culture. He warns us that we are off the beaten track and many villagers may never have seen a white face. We should respect the villagers and their way of life, not treat them as museum pieces and above all not photograph them without their permision. He points out that, while he does this on each trip, he tries not to visit the same village twice. The warning is well given. The first village we stop at has only an elderly woman and a few children in residence, all the men must be away working. Although she is receptive to Ken's initial overtures, when she sees the rest of us pile out of the vehicles she panics and rushes into a hut shouting, while one of the older children shrieks at us. We leave immediately.
Our reception at the next village is quite different. This time Ken ensures that there are men around, and when we stop he immediately asks for the headman. The headman is apparently away, but his son is happy to give us permission to visit and photograph, and we are soon surrounded by grinning men and women and giggling children. Adults and children alike are fascinated when I take their photograph with my digital camera and immediately show them the the picture on the screen, and they cluster round laughing and putting grubby fingerprints on the camera. Unfortunately they then expect everyone else with a camera to do the same! It ocurs to me that if I could find a little handheld printer I could actually give them a printout on the spot - I shall look into this for any subsequent trips.

Meanwhile the villagers give us a demonstration of how they pound cassava to make meal.

We drive on to Chitambo's village to see where David Livingstone's heart (and, indeed, all his internal organs) were buried before his body was carried to Dar es Salaam and thence back to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey. A member of staff at the memorial gives us a prepared talk, but, while the English is fine, his pronunciation is so bad that much of it is unintelligable, and we all have to suppress giggles.

We head back to the Great North Road and continue on towards Mpika. The itinerary calls for a visit to the Kundalila Falls, but unfortunately the Defender breaks down once more, this time with a blocked fuel line. Auxies fixes it without any trouble, but Ken says that to get to the Falls we must drive down a steep track, and if the Land Rover breaks down at the bottom we could be in big trouble, so, reluctantly, he decides to skip the Falls, but promises us an additional excursion somewhere along the way to make up for it.

Mpika is just a stop over on the way to Lake Tanganyika. There is nothing here, but the accomodation is OK, and has electricity so I can charge up my camera battery. (I spent ages trying to discover what sort of mains adapter to bring, but it turns out that all the mains electricity uses standard British 3-pin sockets - this makes sense when you remember that all three countries we visit were British colonies).